Standing inside Springfield Baptist Church where civil rights marchers used to meet, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday that plans are in motion to file a lawsuit against the city of Greenville to oppose the city’s recent switch to nonpartisan elections.

The president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition called the change “yet another scheme” to dilute the minority vote and “wipe out a share of participation.”

“It’s nothing but an at-large scheme,” Jackson said. ““You’ll have an all-white City Council come November if this stands.”

His comments come one month after City Council voted 4 to 3 to do away with party labels in municipal races. Supporters said a nonpartisan system would encourage more people to seek office and increase voter turnout.

Jackson was flanked Sunday by veteran civil rights activists Xanthene Norris and Lottie Gibson, who led a march of several hundred in 1960 to protest the segregated waiting rooms at the Greenville airport.

Both women are on Greenville County Council and had urged the city to stick with party labels at a public hearing April 14.

Greenville interim City Attorney Bob Coler said his office hasn’t been notified of any pending litigation.

“We’ll have to see what it says and then we can respond appropriately,” Coler said.

Coler said the city sent the Justice Department a notice of the election change though such a move, called pre-clearance, is no longer required after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act that called for special scrutiny of states with a history of discrimination.

The ruling also required Congress to come up with a new pre-clearance formula, Coler said.

Jackson said nonpartisan is “nice language” for what amounts to an at-large election in which the candidate with more money prevails.

He said the Rainbow PUSH Coalition would be writing the U.S. Attorney General’s Office Monday to file the lawsuit.